Instructions

Each footstep. Each moment. Every memory. Fades, escapes, left behind with every single word said between us. I could stop walking, the steps, stopping within the very next second but I don’t stop. I do not stop. It’s the way, it’s the rhyme of things, the song with lyrics that make the wildest heart ache with the pain of being alone. Finally, on this very day, as I write, type, think, it’s the way things are.

Build me a time machine using a set of instructions, push me until I see sense, but either way I don’t see an alternative past, present or future. This path, not mine to take, or to use the rhyming word forsake, but it’s the direction I'm heading. I know that I'm not free falling, as I've been there, felt that, done that and then flown as high as the mightiest eagle. People watched, people scorned, throwing words into a fire that simply did not need to be started. I'm not evil, I'm not crass, yet to someone, anyone, I can seem exactly that.

Let’s go back to the ideal of a time machine. What would I do, how could I say the words that I was meant to say at that moment, that space in time, where everything could have been different. The memories command that I replay so very, very much. The ten different things that I could have said, each one, either of the one, could have saved my very soul. I know that I'm complete, finished, about to become something new, but that’s hardly the solace I bargained for. You can trade a devil but, for what, another devil of my own making? The sweet seductive charm for the greener grass is yet another mention of a mistake made in the dark.

Pride, that word, left my side a long, long time ago. You cannot have pride, if you've been broken into the hundreds and thousands of glass shards that make your soul. Pass the glue as I'm about to laugh like a crazy fool, as I use the instructions to put myself back together again. Done that. Did that. Solved that. Even made improvements along the way. Success… pride restored, normality resumed, the smiles returning with such gusto that the dark shadows still hide what’s missing. You cannot, you will NOT, break without consequences. No matter the fix, no matter how strong you stand after whatever event rips you in half, there will always be something missing. Something lacking.

But that doesn't matter. I'm learning, I'm living, again, realising that I have the gifts that can make a million people smile. I'm no better, no more special, than the next person, but I know my strengths and fondly embrace my remaining weaknesses. I hold them close, protect them, knowing that one day I’ll have to let them go. Trust isn't earned, as we all know that we trust far too easily. We give and give. No one truly earns our trust, as instead, we give others our hopes and dreams, wishing that they don’t break us. Here’s the key to my safe, try not to break the porcelain inside. That’s my heart. One’s my soul. My mind is at the back trying to warn the others. It’s okay, it’s fine, I have my own instruction manual and now, no matter what happens, I can rebuild. That is, of course, if you get anywhere near me.

We all need instructions, we all need that plan, whilst wishing that the people around us realise how complicated we can all be. It takes but one notion, one thought, to place a foot in front of each other. No-one knew, least of all the person writing this, that the most important moment of our lives is when we place our hand into the hand of another. We can dream, we can cry, we can object and mortify our hearts, but nothing… nothing at all can prepare each of us for how we react. There’s no instruction manual for two people, together, supposedly forever. It’s unwritten, it’s the pause within the storm. It’s the aching within the darkest nights when you’re apart. It’s the gut-wrenching emotion of suffocating, when they’re lost to you. Gone from you. It’s life.

One day, maybe today, you’ll present your instruction manual to another and they’ll fit. They’ll bond. They’ll join and you’ll know, you’ll damn well know, that no matter the instructions, you, we, I, need to write a new set. A beautiful set, an astonishing set, of instructions for the people yet to follow.

Click to Listen

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Usually I put music on, close my eyes, then just fade into writing something.  The above is FICTION but, of course, we can all draw from life experiences. The moment I stop writing... that place I've visited, vanishes. A horror writer doesn't live life seeing fake monsters, only real ones.